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The Cat and the Canary (2019 Remake)
The Cat and the Canary is a 2019 American/British mystery horror film adaptation of Radley Metzger's 1978 classic of the same name. Directed and screen written by Zachary Byrum and produced by Eli Roth. The Plot: On the 20th anniversary of his death, the remaining relatives of Cyrus West (Michael Caine) are called to his mansion to view the filmed reading of his will. Cyrus lets it be known how much he despised and loathed his kin by setting up a dogfight for the fortune and revealing that Annabelle West (Emma Watson) is to be the sole beneficiary. However, to claim the inheritance, Annabelle must spend the night in the house with the rest of the family and be deemed sane the next morning. A doctor from the asylum up the road, Dr. Hendricks (Peter Cushing), arrives and informs the guests that a homicidal maniac has escaped and is hiding out in the area. Meanwhile, Rodger Crosby (Robert Patteson) suspects someone in the family might try to harm Annabelle and decides to inform her of her successor. Before he speaks the person's name, a hairy hand with long nails emerges from a secret passage in a bookshelf and pulls him in, terrifying Annabelle. When she explains what happened to Crosby, the family immediately concludes that she is insane. Alone in her assigned room, Annabelle examines a note slipped to her which reveals the location of the family jewels, fashioned into an elaborate necklace. She follows the note's instructions and soon discovers the hiding place, in a secret panel above the fireplace. She retires for the night, wearing the diamond-encrusted necklace and begins to toss and turn. While Annabelle sleeps, the same mysterious hand emerges from the wall behind her bed and snatches the diamonds from her neck. Once again, her sanity is questioned, but as Harry (Alex Schemmer) and Annabelle search the room, they discover a hidden passage in the wall and in it the corpse of Roger. To help Annabelle recover from her fright, Wally (Christian Coulson) chats to her in the parlor. When he leaves to fetch some liquor, he hears something in Cyrus' room, opens the hidden door, and explores the passageway. Meanwhile, Annabelle sees the door in the parlor as it opens. When Wally calls to her, she hears him through the passageway and enters it to find him. Once she is inside, someone closes the door. With no exit, Annabelle explores the passageway, walking past a dark cranny where the security guard is hiding. The Cat also walks past the guard, who stops him and takes the necklace from him, unmasking him, but the Cat stabs the guard in the back and follows Annabelle, who has discovered a door leading outside. After the Cat chases Annabelle into a shed and threatens her with a knife, Wally arrives and calls him "Charlie" (Daniel Radcliff), having found the second part of the will in Charles's coat. Charles removes his hood, revealing his disfigured face, pins Wally to the wall with his knife, and begins to strangle Annabelle, but Annabelle escapes, leading to another chase sequence. As Charles searches for Annabelle, he begins to reminisce that he was born with a rare genetic disorder that made him half-cat, half-human, and his true mother was one of those "Crazy Cat Ladies" that had sex with her black cat, calling it her husband. After she died of a heart attack, Cyrus' wife adopted him, but Cyrus believes that felines are supernatural creatures, and that they are the devil in disguise, so he thought of killing him at first, but quickly dismisses that thought after his wife begged him not to. So he kept Charles locked in the passageways, isolating him from the normal world. After so many years of emotional torment from Cyrus, he began to plot revenge on the millionaire by opening the same wall over his bed from before, and using one of his pillows to suffocate him to death, making it look like he died of old age. When they found Charles, they tried to take him to a foster home because of his adopted father's death, but they wouldn't take him because it would cause the attention of kids. So they took him to an asylum, who Dr. Hendricks interviews, and Charles admitted killing his father, but Dr. Hendricks sees something even more sinister with Charles. He believes that cats are not to be trusted too, and that Charles is affiliated with them because he is like "a man possessed". The asylum treated him even more worse than Cyrus, which caused Charles to snap and kill the doctors and guards, causing a major breach and escape the asylum along with other escaping inmates. While Charles' backstory ends, Dr. Hendricks (who has been searching for Charles throughout the movie) meets up with Wally, and Wally dies of blood loss due to the wound. Hendricks goes in search for Charles with his pistol while Annabelle does whatever she could to fend off Charles. He chases her back to the mansion and Harry finds Annabelle, only to be stabbed in the back and tossed downstairs. He continues to pursue Annabelle till he corners her in the closet, but Hendricks luckily locates him at the mansion, causing Charles to go after him instead. While Charles and Hendricks are battling one-another, Annabelle takes the opportunity to sneak past Charles and grabs the fire poker from the living room fireplace. Before Charles finishes off Hendricks, Annabelle attacks him with the fire poker, but Charles gets the upper hand. But Hendricks shoots at Charles, killing him. Police arrive at the scene, but the body of Charles mysteriously vanished, confirming that Charles survived and is still on the loose. Category:Remakes Category:2019 Films Category:American Films